Entries in Frank Castronovo & Frank Falcinelli
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To visit Prime Meats for dinner, you need the Goldilocks plan. A couple of months ago, I arrived at 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday evening, when the wait was quoted as two hours. That was too late. (I dined at the same owners’ Frankies Spuntino instead.) Last week, I was so over-eager that I arrived at 4:45 p.m., which is considered the lunch shift. That was too early. Maybe next time will be Just Right.

In any event, I had traveled an hour to get here from Washington Heights, and I was not going to waste the opportunity. Prime Meats at 4:45 is almost empty, which is delightful. You can sit back, relax, enjoy the late afternoon sun, and not feel guilty that a hundred other people want your table.

With its Germanic Alpine theme, Prime Meats is an odd follow-up from two guys who opened a pair of Italian snack & sandwich places, both called Frankies Spuntino. It shares with them its rustic homespun décor, a commitment to locally-sourced ingredients and making as much as possible in-house.

They also share a no-reservations policy, and until recently credit cards weren’t taken either. Sam Sifton spent four paragraphs of an otherwise glowing two-star review complaining about that, and within a week they caved. American Express is now accepted.

At lunch, Prime Meats serves a much abbreviated version of its dinner menu, and the items in common are a dollar or two cheaper. (Click on the image above for a larger version.)

I’m sure that either Steak Frites ($25) or a burger ($15) would be just fine, but I wanted a better example of the restaurant’s Teutonic theme, so I decided on the Vesper Brett ($14), an “Alpine tasting board” with mixed charcuterie.

It’s a bit like a sandwich without the bread—an Atkins-friendly appetizer. I won’t try to describe the different meats, all excellent, which included everything listed on the menu and more (e.g.,duck prosciutto, fanned out in the lower-left quadrant of the photo).

Like the charcuterie boards at most restaurants these days, the Vesper Brett works best for sharing: it’s really too big to be an appetizer for one. As I was alone, I settled for that and a side dish of sautéed spinach with garlic ($6)—again, too much for one person, but very good for what it was.

The bread service, though, was underwhelming.

There is an alcoholic punch of the day ($5), which on this occasion featured gin, mint, and lime, with a hint of grapefruit juice. It came in an itsy bitsy glass, and even with the restaurant empty, it took a long while for the server to notice I was ready for a re-fill.

If you don’t live in Carroll Gardens, and you’re not keen on waiting for an hour or more, it’s hard to find the right time for a visit to Prime Meats. One of these days, when the time is right, I’ll try again.

I keep thinking that restaurant phenomena cannot get any stranger, and then I find another one. Submitted for your consideration, Frankies 457 Spuntino.

Just to unpack that mouthful of a name takes some work. Frankies are the chefs–owners, Frankie Castronovo and Frankie Falcinelli, and 457 is their address on Court Street, in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Spuntino is an Italian word referring to an informal meal or snack. Like many a celebrity chef these days, the Frankies worked for culinary superstars like David Bouley and Charlie Palmer, then decided they wanted to make it small.

The two Franks opened this casual place to rave reviews in 2004, and then a sequel, Frankies 17 Spuntino in 2006, on Clinton Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Then came Prime Meats late last year, and all hell broke loose. Two doors down from the original Frankies, it received two stars from Sam Sifton in the Times. The two Franks now have a cookbook—you can see it in the window, in the photo at the top of this post.

The strange phenomenon is not that the two Franks built a miniature restaurant empire from humble beginnings—many have done that—but that the rapturous raves for the original restaurant vastly outstrip its merits. Don’t get me wrong: Frankies is a cute place, well worth a diverting little meal, if you happen to find yourself in Carroll Gardens.

But the big feature spreads in Food & Wine,New York, GQ, Travel & Leisure, and so forth? I don’t get it.

Frankies was where I dined on my way to something else: Prime Meats. Reservations aren’t taken, and I knew we’d need to arrive early to have any shot at dining there. After a transit delay, we arrived at 6:30 p.m. On a Saturday evening, that wasn’t going to cut it: we were quoted a two-hour wait. We put our name in, but I was fairly certain my son and I would find something else.

Down the block, at Frankies, we were quoted 45 to 60 minutes. We wandered outside to ponder that, but moments later the host ran after us: “Don’t go too far. I am almost ready to seat you.” Forty-five minutes had turned into six.

The narrow space is a former blacksmith’s shop, rough and ready, with bare wooden tables and a pressed tin ceiling. The two Franks have made as much of it as they can, but you need to be limber to manoever through the cramped space. There’s a garden in the back that they rent for wedding parties at $90 a head. I wouldn’t choose Frankies for that, but someone did: we saw a large party with men in suits and tuxes, and women in strapless summer gowns, traipse through the über-casual dining room.

The menu is simple, which it needs to be, as the kitchen is apparently quite small. It’s dominated by cheeses, cured meats, salads, soups, sandwiches, crostini, and antipasti. There are eight or so entrées, mostly pastas, and mostly under $15.

There was nothing revelatory about a chef’s choice antipasto plate (above; $15), but there was nothing wrong with it either. You’d be happy to have it in your neighborhood.

Our entrées were a clear cut above the average pasta parlor, though I wouldn’t tell you to travel to Carroll Gardens for them. My son had the House-Made Cavatelli with Hot Sausage and Brown Sage Butter ($15; above left), I the Sweet Sausage, Roasted Red Peppers & Onions over Pine Nut Polenta ($14; above right). There was real skill in both dishes. Of all things, I was especially impressed with the polenta, smooth and creamy. It takes some guts to serve that in lieu of pasta.

About an hour in, as our meal was winding down, the host from Prime Meats called: they were ready to seat us. That’s only half of what we were quoted, but still a remarkably long wait for an early dinner on a Saturday. Obviously, we said no, thank you. Prime Meats will have to wait.

Service was fine, but you could tell the staff wants tables to turn. So do the many standees who line the edge of the room, ready to pounce as soon as the next party leaves. Even if this were the kind of restaurant that encouraged lingering, you’d feel a bit guilty about doing it.

Credit cards aren’t accepted, but dinner doesn’t break the bank. Even after a lemonade for my son, a cocktail, and a half-liter of wine, the bill was only $90 including tax and tip. At that price, I didn’t regret the meal at all, but I don’t quite get all the media attention lavished on what is, after all, just a very useful neighborhood place.